The present invention relates to a method and system for assisting the positioning of an electric vehicle with respect to a recharging station. It also relates to a recharging station and an electric vehicle implementing this method.
The electric vehicles concerned can be of the guided type or not, such as a tram or a bus, or also individual mobility systems for personal or shared use.
Electric vehicles require on-board storage of electrical energy for supplying their electric drive train. Recharging the on-board energy storage systems means that these systems receive electrical energy from a recharging station. Among the energy transfer techniques that are currently available, those utilizing electromechanical coupling systems are known.
Document EP 1 938 438 discloses the principle of an arm arranged on the roof of a bus/tram and intended to connect to a socket equipping the station in order to carry out charging.
A connecting system for recharging is also known from document EP 2 393 165, utilizing various concentric tubes that are disengaged on entering the entry cone so as to allow only the plug at the base of the entry cone to come out.
All these electromechanical coupling and terminal devices involve controlling the positioning of the vehicle to be recharged with respect to the recharging station. Several mechanical solutions are already known aiming to optimize the positioning of a vehicle with respect to a station. There can be mentioned in particular the documents U.S. Pat. No. 8,324,858, US 2013/0197803 and US 2014/0084859.
However, the technical solutions proposed and disclosed in these documents are complex to implement and expensive. In particular, they involve substantial investment, as they require modifications to existing infrastructure.